Irvin Cobb - J. Poindexter, Colored стр 5.

Even with all the jamming and all the excitement going on they must a-been expecting us. The way they fusses over Mr. Dallas is proof to my mind that somebody must a-told 'em in advance that he belongs to the real quality down where we comes from, and I certainly is puffed up with pride to be along with him. Because if he had been the King of Europe they could not have showed him no higher honors than what they does.

No sooner does we pull up at the curb-stone in front than a huge big tall white man dressed up something like a Knights of Templar is opening the taxihack door for us to get out; and two or three white boys in militia suits comes a-running at his call and snatches the baggage away from me; and another member of the Grand Lodge, in full uniform, is standing just inside the front door to give us the low bow of welcome as we walks into a place which it is all done up with marble posts and with red wallpaper on the walls and gold chicken-coops on every side until it puts me in mind of a country nigger's notion of Heaven. Over at the clerk's enclosure three white men is waiting very eager to receive us, which each and every one of 'em is wearing his dress-up clothes with a standing collar and long-tailed coat the same as though he was fixing to be best man at a wedding or pall-bearer at a funeral or something else extra special and fancy. For all it's summer-time there is not nobody loafing round there in his shirt sleeves I bet you there ain't!

One of the pall-bearing gentlemen shoves the book round for Mr. Dallas to write his name in it and the second one he reaches for the keys and the third one he looks to see if there is not some mail or telegrams for him. It takes no lessen a number than three of them white boys in the soldier clothes to escort Mr. Dallas upstairs and a fourth one he grabs up my valise and takes me on an elevator to the servants' annex. He don't have to run the elevator himself, neither. There's another hand just to do that alone and all my white boy is got to do is wrestle my baggage. It's the first time in my life ever I has had a white person toting my belongings for me and it makes me feel kind of abovish and important. Also, I takes notice that when he gets to my room he keeps hanging round fussing with the window shade and first one thing and then another, same as if he was one of the bell-boys at the hotel down home waiting on a traveling man. Course he's lingering round till he gets his tip. For quite a spell I lets him linger on and suffer. I lets on like I don't suspicion what he's hanging about that-a-way for. Then I slips him two-bits and I don't begrudge it to him, neither, account of it giving me such a satisfactory feeling to be high-toning a white boy.

I says to myself that if this here is the annex where they boards the transom2 help, what must the main part of the hotel where the regular guests stays at be like? Because my room certainly is mighty stylish-looking and full of general grandeur. But I ain't got no time to be staying there and enjoying the furniture, because I knows Mr. Dallas will be needing me for to come and wait on him. So I starts right out to find him and it seems like I travels half a mile through them hallways before I does so. He's got a big setting-room all to himself and a fashionable bedroom and a special bath and a little special hall and all.

I says to him, I says:

"Mr. Dallas, they shore must be monstrous set-up over havin' you pick out they hotel fur us to stop at. Look how the reception committee turned out fur you downstairs in full regalia? Look how they mouty nigh broke they necks fur to usher you in in due state? And now ef they ain't done gone an' 'sign you to the bridal chamber an' give you the upstairs parlor fur yore own use, mo' over! It p'intedly indicates to me 'at they sets a heap of store by you."

He sort of laughs at that.

"Why, Jeff," he says, "if you think this is a fine lay-out you should see some of the other suites they have here."

I says:

"I ain't cravin' to see 'em. I done seen sweetness 'nuff ez 'tis. They su'ttinly is usin' us noble."

He says they should ought to use us noble seeing what the price is they charges us. He says:

"Do you know what I'm paying here for the accommodations for the two of us? I'm paying twenty-seven dollars and a half."

I says to him if that's the case he better let me clear out of there right brisk and skirmish round and find me a respectable colored boarding house somewheres handy by, so's to cut down the expenses, because, I don't care what anybody says, twenty-seven dollars and a half is a sight of money to be paying out every week.

He says:

"Twenty-seven and a half a week huh! Remember, Jeff, we are in New York now where everything runs high. This stands me twenty-seven and a half a day."

I says to him, I says:

"Who-ee!" I says. "No wonder they kin purvide fancy garments fur all the hands an' buy solid gold bars fur the cage whar they keeps them clerks penned up. Mr. Dallas," I says, "it shore is behoovin' on us to eat hearty th'ee times a day in awder fur to git our money's worth whilst we's boardin' yere."

He says, though, for me not to overtax my appetite just on that account because the eating is besides; he says we pays twenty-seven dollars and a half a day just for our rooms.

I says to him, I says:

"Mr. Dallas, let's git out of yere befo' they begins chargin' us up fur the air we breathes!"

He says:

"You're too late with your suggestion; they do charge us for that. The air is all cleaned and cooled before it comes into these rooms."

Then I knows for sure he is burlesqueing me. Who's going to hold the air whilst they cleans it? And the Good Lord Himself can't chill air to order in the middle of a August hot spell, let alone a lot of folks running a hotel can He? I asks Mr. Dallas them questions.

But he just laughs and say to me that there's not no need to worry, because he won't be staying there only just a day or so. He says Mr. H. C. Raynor, which is his principalest friend in New York and the one which he's thinking about maybe going into business with, has done devised for us to hire some ready-furnished quarters still higher up-town. He says something about 'em being Sublette quarters in a department-house; leastwise that's what I makes out of what he says. That's news to me in more ways than one because, in the first place, I didn't know any of the Sublettes, which is a very plentiful white connection in our county, had done moved up here to live, and in the second place it seemed like to me there just naturally couldn't be no more up-town to New York City than what I already had done observed coming from the train.

He goes on to say he is expecting to hear from the gentleman almost any minute now and then he'll know better what the program is. Almost before he gets the words out of his mouth the telephone bell rings and sure enough, it is this here Mr. Raynor which is on the wire, and it turns out that the place where we're going is ready for us now on account of the folks which owns it having gone away sooner than what they expected, and the further tidings is that we can move up there that same day, which we does along about an hour before supper-time. I notices they don't make near as much fuss over us going thence from there as they did whilst ushering of us in. I judges the man what owns the hotel must be feeling kind of put-out about losing of all that there money which we'd be paying him had we a-stayed on.

We gets into a taxihack and we rides for what seems like to me it's several miles and still are not nowheres near the outskirts as far as I can judge, and when finally we gets to the new location I has another astonishment. For here all day I've been expecting we'd land at a private residence but this place to which we've come at don't look like no private residence to me. It's more like the hotel we just left only more bigger and mighty near as tall. In all other respects additional it certainly is a grand establishment.